Lisa Matisoo-smith
University of Otago, Anatomy, Faculty Member
Human settlement of Oceania marked the culmination of a global colonization process that began when humans first left Africa at least 90,000 years ago. The precise origins and dispersal routes of the Austronesian peoples and the... more
Human settlement of Oceania marked the culmination of a global colonization process that began when humans first left Africa at least 90,000 years ago. The precise origins and dispersal routes of the Austronesian peoples and the associated Lapita culture remain contentious, and numerous disparate models of dispersal (based primarily on linguistic, genetic, and archeological data) have been proposed. Here, through the use of mtDNA from 781 modern and ancient Sus specimens, we provide evidence for an early human-mediated translocation of the Sulawesi warty pig ( Sus celebensis ) to Flores and Timor and two later separate human-mediated dispersals of domestic pig ( Sus scrofa ) through Island Southeast Asia into Oceania. Of the later dispersal routes, one is unequivocally associated with the Neolithic (Lapita) and later Polynesian migrations and links modern and archeological Javan, Sumatran, Wallacean, and Oceanic pigs with mainland Southeast Asian S. scrofa . Archeological and geneti...
Research Interests: Ancient History, Geography, Phylogeography, Principal Component Analysis, Biology, and 15 moreAncient DNA Research, Medicine, Multidisciplinary, Phylogeny, mtDNA, Mitochondrial DNA, Haplotypes, Animals, Ancient DNA, Animal migration, Domestication, Oceania, Mainland, Bayes Theorem, and Molecular Sequence Data
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Research Interests: Archaeology, Medieval History, Zooarchaeology, Diet, Polynesia, and 16 moreChile, Ancient DNA (Archaeology), Gallus gallus, Ancient DNA Research, Multidisciplinary, Pacific Archaeology, Mitochondrial DNA, Humans, Europe, Isotopes, Animals, Polynesian Voyaging, Radiocarbon Dating (Archaeology), Radiocarbon Reservoir Effects, Radiometric Dating, and Chickens
... Human Settlement of the Pacific Michal Denny, Lisa Matisoo-Smith 16th September, 2010 ... Polynesia Melanesia Data from: Murray-McIntosh, R. P et al (1989) Testing migration patterns and estimating founding population size in... more
... Human Settlement of the Pacific Michal Denny, Lisa Matisoo-Smith 16th September, 2010 ... Polynesia Melanesia Data from: Murray-McIntosh, R. P et al (1989) Testing migration patterns and estimating founding population size in Polynesia by using human mtDNA sequences. ...
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Understanding what motivates the preference for and selection of foods has important health implications. Research suggests that the phytochemicals present in green leafy vegetables contain anticarcinogenic properties. As a result of the... more
Understanding what motivates the preference for and selection of foods has important health implications. Research suggests that the phytochemicals present in green leafy vegetables contain anticarcinogenic properties. As a result of the bitter taste of phytochemical compounds, however, foods containing these are often not well accepted, particularly by children. We aimed to study the relation between sensitivity to the bitter taste of 6-n-propylthiocuracil (PROP) and acceptance of bitter- and strong-tasting foods in 3-6-y-old children. Two independent procedures, a threshold detection and a suprathreshold intensity task, were used to measure individual sensitivity to PROP, and 3 independent tasks were used to assess food acceptance. Sensitivity to the bitter taste of PROP was positively correlated with dislike of the taste of raw spinach (P < 0.05). The acceptance of spinach may to some extent be mediated by individual taste perception and be predictable via both threshold and s...
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AbstrAct In 2007 the discovery of pre-Columbian chicken bones from Chile provided the first conclusive evidence for prehistoric Polynesian contact with South America. When looking for further commensal data to address the issue of... more
AbstrAct In 2007 the discovery of pre-Columbian chicken bones from Chile provided the first conclusive evidence for prehistoric Polynesian contact with South America. When looking for further commensal data to address the issue of trans-Pacific contacts, we found a museum collection of human remains recovered from Mocha Island, a small island located ap-proximately 30 km off the Chilean coast. The morphology of the crania suggests they may be of Polynesian ancestry. Here we present craniometric analyses for the six complete crania from Mocha Island, Chile and discuss the implica-tions for further research into prehistoric trans-Pacific interaction.
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ABSTRACT In an effort to document the density and distribution of prehistoric chicken (Gallus gallus) remains across Oceania, this paper presents the analysis of reported faunal remains from over 500 individual archaeological and natural... more
ABSTRACT In an effort to document the density and distribution of prehistoric chicken (Gallus gallus) remains across Oceania, this paper presents the analysis of reported faunal remains from over 500 individual archaeological and natural sites from across the Pacific. We ...
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The genus Rattus is highly speciose, the taxonomy is complex, and individuals are often difficult to identify to the species level. Previous studies have demonstrated the usefulness of phylogenetic approaches to identification in Rattus... more
The genus Rattus is highly speciose, the taxonomy is complex, and individuals are often difficult to identify to the species level. Previous studies have demonstrated the usefulness of phylogenetic approaches to identification in Rattus but some species, especially among the endemics of the New Guinean region, showed poor resolution. Possible reasons for this are simple misidentification, incomplete gene lineage sorting, hybridization, and phylogenetically distinct lineages that are unrecognised taxonomically. To assess these explanations we analysed 217 samples, representing nominally 25 Rattus species, collected in New Guinea, Asia, Australia and the Pacific. To reduce misidentification problems we sequenced museum specimens from earlier morphological studies and recently collected tissues from samples with associated voucher specimens. We also reassessed vouchers from previously sequenced specimens. We inferred combined and separate phylogenies from two mitochondrial DNA regions ...
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ABSTRACT Cet article présente une approche biologique originale du peuplement et de la mobilité humaine en Polynésie à travers l&#39;étude d&#39;un animal qui fut transporté à travers le Pacifique par les anciens polynésiens. Nous... more
ABSTRACT Cet article présente une approche biologique originale du peuplement et de la mobilité humaine en Polynésie à travers l&#39;étude d&#39;un animal qui fut transporté à travers le Pacifique par les anciens polynésiens. Nous sommes convaincus que l&#39;étude de la variation génétique du rat polynésien (#Rattus exulans$) permet de dresser un modèle phylogénétique du peuplement initiale et de la mobilité ultérieure. Les phylogènes ADN de 92 séquences mitochondriales de #Rattus exulans$ originaires de Polynésie orientale sont présentés. Les résultats de l&#39;étude indiquent que toutes les populatoins orientales de #Rattus exulans$ sont originaires du sud des îles Cook et des îles de la Société, que #Rattus exulans$ à Hawaï a deux origines et que #Rattus exulans$ a des origines multiples en Nouvelle-Zélande. Ces résultats sont en contradiction avec les modèles de peuplement du Pacifique qui suggèrent une période d&#39;isolation substantielle après la colonistion initiale, et ils confirment la valeur des études génétiques des commensaux pour l&#39;archéologie. (Résumé d&#39;auteur)
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With the introduction of next generation high throughput sequencing in 2005 and the resulting revolution in genetics, ancient DNA research has rapidly developed from an interesting but marginal field within evolutionary biology into one... more
With the introduction of next generation high throughput sequencing in 2005 and the resulting revolution in genetics, ancient DNA research has rapidly developed from an interesting but marginal field within evolutionary biology into one that can contribute significantly to our understanding of evolution in general and the development of our own species in particular. While the amount of sequence data available from ancient human, other animal and plant remains has increased dramatically over the past five years, some key limitations of ancient DNA research remain. Most notably, reduction of contamination and the authentication of results are of utmost importance. A number of studies have addressed different aspects of sampling, DNA extraction and DNA manipulation in order to establish protocols that most efficiently generate reproducible and authentic results. As increasing numbers of researchers from different backgrounds become interested in using ancient DNA technology to address...
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... Its appearance is associated with the movement of Austronesian speakers not only into Near Oceania, where they encountered a culturally and ... homogeneity may have been the result of an initial founder effect, and/or later... more
... Its appearance is associated with the movement of Austronesian speakers not only into Near Oceania, where they encountered a culturally and ... homogeneity may have been the result of an initial founder effect, and/or later bottlenecks, coupled with an ongoing network of ... An ...
... Multiple Centers of Pig Domestication: Greger Larson,; Keith Dobney,; Umberto Albarella,; Meiying Fang,; Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith,; Judith Robins,; Stewart Lowden,; Heather Finlayson,; Tina Brand,; Eske Willerslev,; Peter... more
... Multiple Centers of Pig Domestication: Greger Larson,; Keith Dobney,; Umberto Albarella,; Meiying Fang,; Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith,; Judith Robins,; Stewart Lowden,; Heather Finlayson,; Tina Brand,; Eske Willerslev,; Peter Rowley-Conwy,; Leif Andersson,; and Alan Cooper. Science ...
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Research Interests: Ancient History, Geography, Social Sciences, Zooarchaeology, Phylogeography, and 16 morePrincipal Component Analysis, Southeast Asia, Ancient DNA Research, Multidisciplinary, Phylogeny, mtDNA, Mitochondrial DNA, Haplotypes, Animals, Ancient DNA, Animal migration, Domestication, Oceania, Swine, Bayes Theorem, and Molecular Sequence Data
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... 2009 doi: 10.2984/049.063.0402. On the Rat Trail in Near Oceania: Applying the Commensal Model to the Question of the Lapita Colonization 1. E. Matisoo-Smith, 2, 4, 7 M. Hingston, 3, 4 G. Summerhayes, 5 J. Robins, 2, 4 HA Ross, 3 and... more
... 2009 doi: 10.2984/049.063.0402. On the Rat Trail in Near Oceania: Applying the Commensal Model to the Question of the Lapita Colonization 1. E. Matisoo-Smith, 2, 4, 7 M. Hingston, 3, 4 G. Summerhayes, 5 J. Robins, 2, 4 HA Ross, 3 and M. Hendy 6. ... Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. ...
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Research Interests: Pharmacology, Biochemistry, Bioinformatics, Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, and 49 moreMarine Biology, Neuroscience, Environmental Science, Geophysics, Physics, Materials Science, Quantum Physics, Developmental Biology, Immunology, Climate Change, Molecular Biology, Structural Biology, Genomics, RNA, Computational Biology, Transcriptomics, Biotechnology, Systems Biology, Cancer, Biology, Metabolomics, Cell Cycle, Proteomics, Ecology, Drug Discovery, Evolution, Nanotechnology, Astrophysics, Neurobiology, Medicine, Multidisciplinary, Palaeobiology, Functional Genomics, Nature, Signal Transduction, Astronomy, DNA, LAOS, Phylogeny, Mitochondrial DNA, Animals, Classification, Cell Signalling, Medical Research, Swine, Captive Wild Animals, Reproducibility of Results, Earth Science, and Automatic data processing
... REFERENCES Allen, MS; Matisoo-Smith, EA; Horsburgh, A. 2001: Pacific &amp;amp;amp;quot;Babes&amp;amp;amp;quot;: issues in the origins and dispersal of Pacific pigs and the potentials of mitochondrial DNA analysis.... more
... REFERENCES Allen, MS; Matisoo-Smith, EA; Horsburgh, A. 2001: Pacific &amp;amp;amp;quot;Babes&amp;amp;amp;quot;: issues in the origins and dispersal of Pacific pigs and the potentials of mitochondrial DNA analysis. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 11: 4-13. ...
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... and crab claws in fire remains, with the oldest potsherds and human bone within the overlying 5 cm (at 67 cm and 65 cm depths, respectively). Approximately at the level of the human bone date (40 cm depth) appeared Pacific rat (Rattus... more
... and crab claws in fire remains, with the oldest potsherds and human bone within the overlying 5 cm (at 67 cm and 65 cm depths, respectively). Approximately at the level of the human bone date (40 cm depth) appeared Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) bones in abundance and frog ( ...
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At some point during the last 350 years, Cercopithecus mona, the mona monkey, was taken from West Africa to the islands of Grenada, in the Caribbean, and São Tomé and Príncipe, off the west-central coast of Africa. In this chapter, we... more
At some point during the last 350 years, Cercopithecus mona, the mona monkey, was taken from West Africa to the islands of Grenada, in the Caribbean, and São Tomé and Príncipe, off the west-central coast of Africa. In this chapter, we present results of a mitochondrial DNA analysis of the Grenada monkeys that was undertaken to assess the degree of
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A piston-type mud sampler is described. It is a development of the Livingstone corer and was designed to extract cores for DNA analysis of sediments. Prevention of contamination was paramount. As the entire system is self-contained and... more
A piston-type mud sampler is described. It is a development of the Livingstone corer and was designed to extract cores for DNA analysis of sediments. Prevention of contamination was paramount. As the entire system is self-contained and the sample is retained in the corer, it was found ideal for extracting very soft sediments which could not be captured by existing